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Marilyn

Here’s a puzzle I received from my brother. “There’s a bowl of M&M’s. All but four are yellow. All but four are red. All but four are green. How many M&M’s are in the bowl?” My brother and I disagree about the number of answers. I say there is only one best answer. He says there are three answers. However, to get two more answers, he had to assume at least one other color is involved. I think such an assumption should be made only if a solution cannot be found otherwise. Your thoughts?

Marilyn responds:

The problem arises from using M&M’s in the puzzle. This implies more colors could be involved. So, in my opinion, the puzzle itself is ambiguous. Still, if it can be solved with a single answer using only the information given, that’s the best answer to it.

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